Meet the small-town Kosovo mayor who is rejected by most inhabitants of his municipality and who is trapped amid tensions between Albanians and Serbs that have bubbled over into sporadic violence this year. Lulzim Hetemi, the ethnic Albanian mayor of Kosovo's northern municipality of Leposavic, has lived and slept in his office since a month after he was elected in April, guarded by NATO troops and Kosovo special police. Hetemi, a beekeeper, was elected with only 100 votes in an election that was boycotted by ethnic Serbs who are a minority in Kosovo as a whole, but who make up more than 97% of the total population of Leposavic.
globalsecurity.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from globalsecurity.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
NATO said on Thursday it was ready to send more troops to an ethically divided region of Kosovo where dozens of people were injured in violence this week, while Pristina and Belgrade accused each other of fuelling tensions there.
MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) - Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said on Thursday he will not back down from a decision to install ethnic Albanian mayors in Serb majority areas, a move which triggered violence, prompting NATO to send more troops to the region. | 10:18am